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Geography (from Greekγεωγραφία -
geographia, lit. "earth describe-write") is the study of
the Earth and its lands, features,
inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to
describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the
word "geography" was Eratosthenes
(276-194 B.C.). Four historical traditions in geographical research
are the spatial analysis of natural
and human phenomena (geography as a study of distribution),
area studies (places and regions),
study of man-land relationship, and research in earth sciences. Nonetheless, modern geography
is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand
the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely
where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. As
"the bridge between the human and physical sciences," geography is divided
into two main branches—human
geography and physical
geography.

Introduction

Traditionally, geographers have been
viewed the same way as cartographers and people who study
place names and numbers. Although many geographers are trained in
toponymy and cartology, this is not their
main preoccupation. Geographers study the spatial and temporal
distribution of phenomena, processes and features as well as the
interaction of humans and their environment. As space and place affect a
variety of topics such as economics, health, climate, plants and
animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary.

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main
subsidiary fields: human geography
and physical geography. The
former focuses largely on the built
environment and how space is created, viewed and managed by
humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they
occupy. The latter examines the natural environment and how the
climate, vegetation & life, soil,
water, and landforms
are produced and interact. As a result of the two subfields using
different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography.
Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and
looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.

Human geography

Human geographyis a branch of
geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that
shape human interaction with various environments. It encompasses
human, political,
cultural, social, and
economicaspects. While the major focus of
human geography is not the physical landscape of the Earth (see
physical geography), it is hardly
possible to discuss human geography without referring to the
physical landscape on which human activities are being played out,
and environmental
geographyis emerging as a link between the two. Human geography
can be divided into many broad categories, such as:

Environmental geography

Environmental geographyis
the branch of geography that describes the spatial aspects of
interactions between humans and the natural world. It requires an
understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human
geography, as well as the ways in which human societies
conceptualize the environment.

Geomatics

Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

Geomaticsis a branch of geography that has
emerged since the quantitative revolution in geography in the mid
1950s. Geomatics involves the use of traditional spatial techniques
used in cartography and topography and their application to
computers. Geomatics has become a widespread field with many other
disciplines using techniques such as GIS and remote sensing.
Geomatics has also led to a revitalization of some geography
departments especially in Northern America where the subject had a
declining status during the 1950s.

Regional geography

Regional geographyis a branch of
geography that studies the regions of all sizes across the Earth. It has a prevailing descriptive character. The
main aim is to understand or define the uniqueness or character of
a particular region which consists of natural as well as human
elements. Attention is paid also to regionalizationwhich covers the proper
techniques of space delimitationinto
regions.

Related fields

Urban planning, regional planning and spatial planning: use the science of
geography to assist in determining how to develop (or not develop)
the land to meet particular criteria, such as safety, beauty,
economic opportunities, the preservation of the built or natural
heritage, and so on. The planning of towns, cities, and rural areas
may be seen as applied geography.

Interplanetary Sciences: While
the discipline of geography is normally concerned with the Earth, the term can also be informally used to
describe the study of other worlds, such as the planets of the Solar
System and even beyond. The study of systems larger than the
earth itself usually forms part of Astronomy or Cosmology.
The study of other planets is usually called planetary science. Alternative terms such
as Areology (the study of Mars) have
been proposed, but are not widely used.

Systematic - Groups geographical knowledge into categories that
can be explored globally.

Regional - Examines systematic relationships between categories
for a specific region or location on the planet.

Descriptive - Simply specifies the locations of features and
populations.

Analytical - Asks why we find features and populations
in a specific geographic area.

Cartography

Cartography studies the representation of the Earth's surface with
abstract symbols (map making). Although other subdisciplines of
geography rely on maps for presenting their analyses, the actual
making of maps is abstract enough to be regarded separately.
Cartography has grown from a collection of drafting techniques into
an actual science.

Cartographers must learn cognitive
psychologyand ergonomics to understand which symbols convey
information about the Earth most effectively, and behavioral psychologyto induce the readers of
their maps to act on the information. They must learn geodesyand fairly advanced mathematicsto understand how the shape of the Earthaffects the distortion
of map symbols projected onto a flat surface for viewing. It can be
said, without much controversy, that cartography is the seed from
which the larger field of geography grew. Most geographers will
cite a childhood fascination with maps as an early sign they would
end up in the field.

Geographic information systems

Geographic information systems (GIS) deal with the storage of
information about the Earth for automatic retrieval by a computer,
in an accurate manner appropriate to the information's purpose. In
addition to all of the other subdisciplines of geography, GIS
specialists must understand computer
scienceand databasesystems. GIS has
revolutionized the field of cartography; nearly all mapmaking is
now done with the assistance of some form of GIS software. GIS also refers to the
science of using GIS software and GIS techniques to represent,
analyze and predict spatial relationships. In this context, GIS
stands for Geographic Information Science.

Remote sensing

Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about Earth
features from measurements made at a distance. Remotely sensed data
comes in many forms such as satellite
imagery, aerial
photographyand data obtained from hand-held sensors.
Geographers increasingly use remotely sensed data to obtain
information about the Earth's land
surface, ocean and atmosphere because it: a) supplies objective
information at a variety of spatial scales (local to global), b)
provides a synoptic view of the area of interest, c) allows access
to distant and/or inaccessible sites, d) provides spectral
information outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and e)
facilitates studies of how features/areas change over time.
Remotely sensed data may be analyzed either independently of, or in
conjunction with, other digital data layers (e.g., in a Geographic
Information System).

History of geography

The ideas of Anaximander(c. 610 B.C.-c.
545 B.C.), considered by later Greek writers to be the true founder
of geography, come to us through fragments quoted by his
successors. Anaximander is credited with the invention of the
gnomon,the simple yet efficient Greek instrument that allowed the
early measurement of latitude. Thales, Anaximander is also credited
with the prediction of eclipses. The foundations of geography can
be traced to the ancient cultures, such as the ancient, medieval,
and early modern Chinese. The
Greeks, who were the first to explore
geography as both artand science, achieved this through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate
about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is
spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenidesor Pythagoras. Anaxagoraswas able to demonstrate that the
profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However, he still believed that the Earth
was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the
first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.

The first rigorous system of latitude and longitudelines is
credited to Hipparchus. He employed a
sexagesimalsystem that was derived from
Babylonian mathematics. The
parallels and meridians were sub-divided into 360°, with each
degree further subdivided 60′ (minutes). To
measure the longitude at different location on Earth, he suggested
using eclipses to determine the relative difference in time. The
extensive mapping by the Romansas they
explored new lands would later provide a high level of information
for Ptolemyto construct detailed atlases. He extended the work of Hipparchus, using a grid system on his maps and
adopting a length of 56.5 milesfor a
degree.

From the 3rd century onwards, Chinesemethods of geographical study and
writing of geographical literature became much more complex than
what was found in Europe at the time (until the 13th century).
Chinese geographers such as Liu An, Pei Xiu, Jia Dan, Shen Kuo, Fan Chengda,
Zhou Daguan, and Xu
Xiakewrote important treatises, yet by the 17th century,
advanced ideas and methods of Western-style geography were adopted
in China.

Abu Rayhan Biruni(976-1048) first
described a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant
projectionof the celestial
sphere. He was regarded as the most skilled when it came to
mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he
did for many cities in the Middle
Eastand Indian subcontinent.
He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations,
in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording
degrees of latitudeand longitude. He also developed similar techniques
when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of valleys,
and expanse of the horizon. He also
discussed human geographyand the
planetary habitabilityof the
Earth. He hypothesized that roughly a quarter
of the Earth's surface is habitable by humans.
He also calculated the latitudeof Kath,
Khwarezm, using the maximum altitude of the
Sun, and solved a complex geodesicequation
in order to accurately compute the Earth's
circumference, which were close to
modern values of the Earth's circumference. His estimate of
6,339.9 km for the Earth radiuswas
only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In
contrast to his predecessors who measured the Earth's circumference
by sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations,
al-Birunideveloped a new method of using
trigonometriccalculations based on the
angle between a plainand mountaintop which yielded more accurate
measurements of the Earth's circumference and made it possible for
it to be measured by a single person from a single location. He
also published a study of map
projections, Cartography,
which included a method for projecting a hemisphereon a plane.

The European Age of Discoveryduring
the 16th and 17th centuries, where many new lands were discovered
and accounts by European explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Marco Poloand James
Cook, revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and
more solid theoretical foundations in Europe.

Over the past two centuries the advancements in technology such as
computers, have led to the development of geomaticsand new practices such as participant
observation and geostatistics being incorporated into geography's
portfolio of tools. In the West during the 20th century, the
discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism,
regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and
critical geography. The strong
interdisciplinary links between geography and the sciences of
geologyand botany, as
well as economics, sociologyand demographicshave also grown greatly especially
as a result of Earth System Science that seeks to understand the
world in a holistic view.